


Pay a Plant to Grow

by NeverComingHome



Category: How to Get Away with Murder
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-09
Updated: 2015-04-11
Packaged: 2018-03-22 01:08:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3709333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeverComingHome/pseuds/NeverComingHome
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes the road to love is paved with bad intentions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Vague spoilers through 1.15

When Michaela was in elementary school the first soccer team she ever played on won every game, the entire season, except for their last one. She was in the goalie box when a little girl-who didn't even care-stumbled backward and kicked with her left foot instead of her right so the ball went soaring in the opposite direction Michaela was diving in. It was her first brush with the concept of victory versus failure and she knew right away which she preferred. When her parents asked why she was upset after such an amazing streak she told them she'd wanted to win.

“You did, you got an mvp trophy.”

“I want to win everything, every time.”

They'd laughed and hugged her tears away, but years after she forgot about the sting of the loss she'd think “everything, every time” as words of comfort.

~*~  
The thing with Laurel could've started a bit more righteous, she knew that. In a world where she met her instead of Aiden their courtship would have been slow and charming like they both deserved, but it didn't. It started after she had blood on her hands, an ex fiance, and the frantic need to set down new tracks in the same direction. With Laurel she could still be half of a power couple that checked the minority, sexuality and gender box to reel in the kind of disadvantaged and abused clients Laurel was so intent on representing. In contrast, Michaela would crush her opponents who expected a bleeding heart liberal only to find themselves up against a hard nosed prosecutor who saw only the black and white case documents of clients stolen from their firm. With Laurel she could have the kids, the house, the job, the everything. 

Laurel, for her part, didn't make it easy.

“I've gone off coffee, but thanks for offer.”

“What kind of law student 'goes off' coffee?”

“The kind that's sensitive to caffeine.”

Michaela sighed. “Oh my god, you're going to make this as difficult as possible.”

Laurel frowned slightly as if confused, but also apologetic for whatever social misstep she'd just made. “Sorry?”

Michaela looked down then took a step closer to gently stroke the strap of the other's purse. “You do a lot for the group, and you never get any credit. It's bullshit. I want to buy you a coffee, talk about stuff we don't have to lower our voices to discuss.”

“Oh! Well, there's this tea place I've been meaning to check out. We could go there?”

Michaela beamed, her voice lifting from purr to perky in an instant. “Let's do it.”

~*~  
It took a Chai and half a biscuit for Laurel to relax into the bright purple sofa and notice Michaela's method of interrogation had changed under the influence of Annalise, less aggressive and more conversational. In forty five minutes Michaela knew about the relationship she had with her parents(on the rocks, but on speaking terms much like their marriage), her favorite and least favorite professors(Annalise and Annalise), two of the five pets she'd had as a child (Monty the snake and Charles the hamster both of whom died under the reign of Button the cat), and her first girlfriend. 

“How long did you date?”

“Only for the summer, my dad sent me to a different camp when he found the notes.”

“Tragic. So, was she really pretty or what?

She leaned forward only to find her face to face to Michaela who had mimicked her movement. “I don't know, she had these huge grandma glasses and wore polka dots all the time, but she swam in her pjs across the lake because someone called her a wuss and eleven year old me was smitten.”

“We should go swimming,” Michaela trailed her fingers across Laurel's thigh briefly, “I can hold my breath for almost two minutes.”

Laurel nearly snorted, covering her mouth quickly as it finally dawned on her what was happening. 

“You're flirting with me. Badly. Michaela Pratt is a terrible flirt, the world has to know.”

“Well, you're bad at being flirted with. My hand has been on your knee for the past five minutes and it's like you don't even care.”

They were both smiling at that point and even though it wasn't exactly the seduction Michaela had been aiming for it still ended with a lingering kiss on her cheek before Laurel suggested that next time they should make it dinner.


	2. Chapter 2

Laurel was always spiritual, even after she stopped being religious, because the first true thing she ever wanted was to make people matter. When she was in the courtroom shyness became calm and earnestness became conviction as she argued for another person's right to be seen as what they were and not as what they had done. In Michaela she'd seen perfection and nobody could fix perfection without creating another unnecessary narcissist. The Keating murder had wedged emotional cracks in all of them, but Michaela didn't crack-she shattered. In the face of her break down Laurel had built up a wall strong enough to protect them both. She took the ring and waited until Michaela was ready to admit she wasn't the last word in excellence before telling her. 

~*~  
They had two weeks of lunches before they had dinner. She invited Laurel out on her friend's boat and wore a sun dress with a hat too big for her head as if she were modeling for everyone around them, making small talk like it was going to be on the final. She pranced from one group to the next while Laurel trailed quietly behind, taking in the water and crowd with one hand holding her fly away blouse. Laurel was actually starting to wonder why she'd been invited at all when Michaela seemed so intent on pretending she wasn't there. When they found themselves alone on the top level, squinting through the wind, Michaela took her hand.

“Is this not your scene?”

“I like the boat and the music.”

“But not the people?”

“To be honest I'd rather be there,” she pointed to a fair going on in the distance. “But this is nice. I don't want to leave if you don't want to leave.”

The tips of Michaela's fingers touched Laurel's jawline as they kissed.

“I want whatever you want.”

~*~  
The more composed Michaela was the more epic her down spiral would be, but at the moment there didn't seem to be anything that would cause it. She quit the study group as soon as Laurel started calling her 'babe', had long conversations in locked classrooms with Wes and Connor and eventually transferred out of Annalise's class and found a new mentor. She said it was the only sane option, but Laurel couldn't help but feel as if she'd made some sort of sacrifice.

She couldn't help how much she wanted it to be perfect despite the fact that her being drawn to Michaela meant it couldn't. The first time they had dinner together was at Laurel's parents house and they stood on the doorstep in complementary dresses holding hands and the world didn't end. The sidewalk didn't come apart and swallow them whole and her parents didn't gasp and pull her aside the moment they entered. When her father said something in Spanish Michaela replied in French, told witty jokes about south American policies and crass ones about women. At the end of the night she followed Laurel's mother into the kitchen and they came out arm in arm.

As the car warmed up Laurel stared at Michaela with her cheek on the headrest.

“How do you do it? My whole life I've never been able to impress him.”

“It's easy, I simply convinced him I was the female version of a conservative patriarch who would keep his gorgeous daughter out of the courtroom and in the house where she belongs...after you retired from the supreme court and I reached my term limit as president of course.”

Laurel chose to focus on the important part of the sentence. “Whose house?”

“Our house.”

“You sound pretty confident.”

“You sound pretty...pretty.”

Laurel laughed and leaned over to kiss her. “Such. A. Bad. Flirt.”

~*~

She didn't fall in love with her then or when they had sex or on their first year anniversary or the night they went skinny dipping and Michaela got sick because she insisted she really could hold her breath for almost two minutes and wouldn't get out of the water until she proved it.

Laurel fell in love with Michaela the night she found out Michaela wasn't in love with her.

~*~  
Wes had gotten himself mixed in with Annalise again, Bonnie had quit and Connor had transferred out. He came over because he didn't know what to do but lean on Michaela's doorbell with his shoulder because his hands were shaking too hard. Laurel lifted up from the bed, but Michaela pressed her back down and went to answer it. Laurel tried to sleep, but Wes's voice rose and fell as he was hushed. When Laurel couldn't stand the din she wrapped herself in a robe and went out to talk it out with them.

“-anything about what I'm going through! You ran away to live your happily ever after with Castillo.”

“I'm with her because I needed my life back. Her family is untouchable and when we get married I'll be untouchable too. I told you last year that sticking around would only make it worse and now you're out committing felonies. FOR WHAT? Damn it, Wes.”

“I screwed up.”

“Astronomically and I feel for you, but you need to leave. I will call you later.”

He sniffed. “Promise?”

“No. Get out.”

When Michaela turned away from the door Laurel was there and both of them unwittingly were thinking the same thing,

_(I want whatever you want)_

that they could carry on like Laurel didn't hear the real reason Michaela had asked her out for coffee. They could spend the rest of their lives sitting on opposite ends of a dinner table talking about work and kissing each other goodnight only so the kids would see and think that it was love. Laurel would be quiet and submissive while Michaela was loud and amicable to their guests until one day one of them would sneak out to a motel room and have sex with someone just to remember what it felt like to be desired. 

Instead, Laurel threw a pillow at her face.

“Not so untouchable now.”

“Let's just work through it like adults.”

“Work through what?" She threw another pillow,"The fact that you faked an entire relationship when you can't even fake an orgasm?”

“Oh, low blow.”

“Low blow? You want a low blow?”

Couch cushions hurt when thrown by an angry woman who has just realized that the vulnerability that had attracted her to Michaela was the same vulnerability that had drawn Michaela to her. Laurel loved her with everything one person had to give another person and when she saw her future she saw only Michaela, but she wasn't supposed to tell her that at four am in the midst of a rant about lies and murder. It was all the right things in all the wrong ways, but it had to be said and so the words tore out of her mouth like bullets.

“Why is this life so important to you? Are you really so shallow that the only thing you have to live for is having everything?”

Michaela can't help but finish, “Every time.”

The door slams so hard behind Laurel the pictures shake.


	3. Chapter 3

Laurel's mother, Elena, called Michaela to confirm the plans for the dinner party being thrown in their honor. She began to call it a coming out before quickly referring to it as an Introduction, capital I, with no room for cancellations. She said it in a tone that implied she knew just enough to need no explanation for why the dinner party would be a massively awkward affair. Michaela jotted down the details and arranged to pick up the dress from the cleaners that made her legs look infinite, called Wes and talked him down from turning himself in, and then studied until she was able to consume as much new information as she could without forgetting her middle name.

~*~  
She was shaking hands with a politician in the doorway when she saw her. Laurel was in white, the “v” down her back framing too much skin for a girl who looked away shyly the first time they showered together. Michaela straightened, waiting for the backlash, snatched a flute of champagne in anticipation of it. 

“Sweetie, I didn't see you come in.”

“I've been at the mercy of Mr. Gregson.” Laurel kissed her cheek brief and matter-of-factually before slipping an arm around her waist.

The older man laughed. “I assumed you'd had enough of her. Your father told me you'd given up your place.”

“Not until graduation, but we spend so much time together I'm not surprised he'd think so. This is the first time I've seen her today, really, do you mind?”

He shook his head and waved them off, allowing Laurel to steer them away. Michaela took a long sip from her glass, wanting to bounce on her toes like a boxer preparing for a fight, but found herself stopped at another small knit of people. Perhaps purgatory was a series of polite conversations in a room with people, not knowing if hell or heaven awaited and so she launched herself into high society mode to distract herself. It was everything she was prepared for, after all. Laurel chimed in when necessary, kissed cheeks, made small talk, and supplied names and titles when necessary. At dinner she was as much Michaela's personal cheerleader as Michaela was hers without ever allowing their bodies to touch though they sat side by side.

By the end of it Michaela felt invigorated, but dazed. The Castillos insisted that tomorrow being Sunday and the dinner having run late gave them no excuse not to spend the night. They were in the bathroom, brushing their teeth in separate sinks when Laurel set down her brush.

“This is what you want, right?” Michaela knew what she meant and didn't respond. “I hate coming out parties, god, so damn much.”

“I couldn't tell.”

“Yeah, that's the worst part.”

Michaela set down her toothbrush as well, shuffling closer to Laurel so their shoulders touched. 

“I studied all day and almost passed out, I'm so used to you distracting me.” Laurel continued staring hard into the sink, ignoring Michaela's weak smile. “I'm not going to tell you I regret asking you out because I don't. I loved tonight, it was practically my Cinderella story.” A tear dropped from Laurel's cheek onto the porcelain and Michaela turned her away from it, stroked the side of her neck until she looked into her eyes. “Don't marry me, don't move in with me, never go to another party where you have to shake hands just...stay. I need you.”

“Me, Michaela? Do you need me or what I have? What happens when the guests go home and you stop hurting over what we went through? I know it's not about money, but I don't want to be with someone who only wants me because there was no one else they could trust.” 

“Well, that's love to me.” She pressed their foreheads together. “It's probably not the answer you want, but it's the truth. Every time I fall apart you're the only one I trust to see and not use it against me, I know that it is all sorts of paranoid and dysfunctional, but it's something.”

Laurel was quiet for a long moment before she decided that it was.


End file.
